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our LORD's words (Matt. v. 13,) all Christians save these, had hitherto supposed Christianity itself to be the salt by which it is His design that the world, or the spirit of the age, should be preserved from corruption. The reader will also observe, that while care is taken in the worship of the ALMIGHTY to guard against every thing savouring of superstition; against irreverence in any of its varied forms, to which none can deny the unrestricted freedom of man (in these resolutions so strongly advocated) to be only too liable, no precaution whatever has been adopted. "Many persons seem willing to draw a great distinction between Ronge and Kerbler ou one side, and Czerski on the other, who has, at length, (as is reported,) separated from the former. But when I consider that Czerski was a consenting party to these resolutions, and also took an active part in the amalgamation of the (soi-disant) • German Catholics' with the Friends of Light'; it is not the mere wish to retain the Apostles' Creed, upon the strength of which his separation from the other is reported to have taken place, that can entitle him at present to our confidence; although it may reasonably afford room for hope, that eventually, under GoD's blessing, he and his may take up a position on which we may safely ask a blessing, and on the strength of it establish ecclesiastical relationship with them. But I must confess myself, that I heard little in Germany to warrant this exceeding confidence in M. Czerski's integrity or firmness of purpose; and even since the foregoing lines have been in type, I have read in the public papers an announcement from Silesia, only too confirmatory of the distrust I have expressed; namely, that he and M. Ronge have had another conference, and are again united on terms out-latitudinarianising, if that be possible, those which I have just cited."

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If there are any churchmen who still have hopes of the (so called) "German Catholics," we imagine that this extract will utterly dispel them.

The great object which Mr. Perceval has in view is the establishment of a Bishop bearing English Orders in Heligoland, (a possession of the British crown, and destitute of a chief pastor,) to act as the centre of a German mission. And the fact on which he chiefly rests for encouragement in this project is, that of Germany having in the first instance received Christianity from England; of which he tells us, the memory is fresh in the minds even of the "poorest peasantry."

"The sees moreover of Northern Germany," (he asserts) "have for the most part never been filled up since the sixteenth century. I speak under correction, but I believe truly, when I say that in the whole of Germany Proper, north of Meningen, only the following bishops are to be found: -Cologne, archbishopric; Fulda, Hildesheim, and Munster, bishoprics. The sees of Minden, Erfurt, Helmstadt, Meissen, Merseberg, Magdeburg, Hamburgh, Bremen, Lubec, Schwerin, and (I believe) many others, are, and have long been, vacant. Even Saxony, where the king is of the Roman communion, has no canonical bishops. Episcopal functions for the Saxons being discharged by another Roman bishop in partibus."

That under existing circumstances, such a step is lawful we do not doubt. Of old it would not have been necessary. Each branch of the Church would have received the member of a foreign Church to communion. And this ought to be the case now. A Belgian, or a French or German Catholic sojourning in this country, would of course be admitted to the Holy Communion by our English priests and the first desire of an English churchman on going abroad, should be to communicate with that branch of the One Body which he finds there established. But on application to the ecclesiastical authorities, he would find himself refused unless he subscribed to the Decrees of the Council of Trent, or at least to the Confession of Pope Pius. Englishmen therefore, if compelled to live abroad, are compelled to seek the ministrations of their own Church and seeing that a body of clergy do exist in this ambiguous position, it follows that they should be placed under episcopal control. Further, under such control, it is certainly lawful to labour to bring those who are without the Church, (as Lutherans, Calvinists,) within her sacred fold. At the same time we are not sanguine in our expectations concerning such a measure: for, to say nothing of other difficulties, where are we to find men properly qualified for the work? They must be made of very different stuff from the present race of "Chaplains." The English Church, to say the truth, is not in a condition to undertake such a work. She needs to look at home to understand her own principles better than she now does; and to be furnished with a better instructed and more self-denying Priesthood.

The Appendix to Mr. Perceval's little volume contains some matter of personal domestic controversy into which we shall not

enter.

From Germany we turn to Canada,-from the dilettante tourist, to the missionary in his work. The writer or editor, (if the two are really different,) begins with a protest against the impression that the Clergy in the North American Colonies are not missionaries otherwise than in name. At the same time, it is fair to say, that there is nothing whatever of the mock-heroic in these memoirs. The narrative is very simply and unaffectedly written; and whether it contains the veritable history of an individual clergyman in those parts or not, we have not the least doubt that it presents a true picture of colonial life, and will not fail to excite real interest in the reader. Mr. Musgrave (so the author calls himself,) does not lay claim to any very high motive, either in first seeking Orders, nor in exchanging his curacy in a populous town in England for a missionary appointment under the S. P. G. in Canada East. Nevertheless, he seems to have discharged his duties in a plain, practical, common-sense way, and to have gained considerable influence,-influence if not of the most exalted kind, yet near akin to that which constitutes, for the most part, the power of

the Clergy at home among those for whom he laboured. By aid of subscription lists and Societies, he built three or four churches, and as many schools; reformed many evil practices; assisted his people in the science of agriculture, and other branches of useful knowledge.

Mr. Musgrave's first arrival at the site of his future labours, is painfully but amusingly characteristic. A small sailing craft (it was before the days of steamers,) had brought him to within five miles of the village which he was in search of; and he was now resting in his walk which a broiling sun had rendered not a little wearisome, when he was overtaken by a gentleman in a gig, who exclaimed at once,

"You are the minister come out to us from England!'

"Yes," I replied, 'I am.'

"Then I am right glad to see you, sir,' he said, as he got out of his rude carriage, and offered me his hand, which I cordially shook: and, oh! what a relief it was to me to meet with even this slight mark of friendship. Fortunately for my comfort then, I did not know how valueless it was.

"He asked me where I had been, and wondered how he could have missed me. He told me, too, that several hours had elapsed since the boat that brought me had reached the landing-place. Indeed, I now perceived that the sun had set, and night was coming on apace; already were the tiny flashes of the firefly seen in myriads among the pine-trees. I began to think I certainly must have slept; and I do not know but that I had been dreaming too.

"Your name is Johnstone?' said my friend, requesting me at the same time to get into his wagon.

"No,' I replied, as I paused with my foot on the step, in the act of acceding to his kind request, My name is Musgrave.'

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"That's very strange !' he said; and after hesitating for a moment, he added, 'Never mind! get in.'

"I did so; and he drove me to the village tavern, as I declined going to a private house, where he wished most anxiously to take me.

"During our drive he several times adverted to my name being Mus grave instead of Johnstone, as it evidently ought to have been, in his opinion. He clung to this idea with such extraordinary pertinacity, that I at length, probably from my confused state of mind, began-I must not say, to doubt my own identity, but to reflect whether or not I was really in my right senses.

"He seemed to read my thoughts, at least he saw some hesitation, and triumphantly exclaimed

"Why, Colonel K-this was the colonel I have mentioned as my fellow-passenger-' said that your servant told him your name was Johnstone.'

"His own he must have meant,' I said; for it so happened that my servant's name was Johnson, and perhaps he might have said, in answer to some question, which he did not see they had any right to ask, that mine was Johnson too; or they might have mistaken his trunk for one

of mine, and seen his name upon it. However this might be, on arriving at the inn, when the landlord came to the door, my pertinacious guide introduced me, by saying, "Here's the Reverend Mr. Johnstone, the minister we sent for, and have been expecting up by this day's boat.'

"This somewhat annoyed me, and I immediately declared, with some warmth, that my name was not Johnstone.

"Then you're not the minister appointed to this place.' "Yes I am.'

"Then your name is Johnstone-must be Johnstone.'

"Well,' I said, beginning to feel more amused than vexed, 'my name was Musgrave before I left England, and I am certainly appointed as minister in this village and neighbourhood by the Bishop.'

"My guide gave a loud, contemptuous, and long-continued whistle, and then drawled out the first syllable of the word Bishop, at the same time laying an absurd accent upon the last-"Be-e-shopp," adding with a derisive laugh, We are Bishoped indeed, and the milk's burnt with a vengeance !**

"I mention this trifling incident, not only to show the bitterness of that hostility which for years continued to annoy me, but to enable the reader to understand the cause of the virulent persecution which I had to endure.

"My predecessor had been dead nearly two years. The measures taken for the appointment of his successor had of course been confined to the Bishop and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, without the knowledge or concurrence of the people in the place. There were no steamers crossing the Atlantic then; it therefore took a much longer period to complete the arrangements than it would do now. Besides, some months elapsed before I could relinquish my curacy. During all this time the Presbyterians, who were the most numerous among the various sects of which the mixed population consisted, were by no means idle. They had sent home a petition to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for a salary of £100 a year for a Presbyterian minister. To this petition they had received a favourable answer, and by getting the other dissenters, as well as most of our own people, who had begun to despair of obtaining another clergyman of their own, to unite with them, they managed to make up this salary to a very respectable amount."

His Presbyterian rival reached his destination the day after. The English of course in these countries reproduce their own miserable divisions, which are strengthened not a little by the influx of Scotch Presbyterians, and Irish Romanists. The shame belongs not to them but to us-to us, first, for not teaching our people better at home, and secondly, for sending among them an ill-instructed and unfaithful body of missionaries.

In illustration of this last remark we shall, by way of conclusion, quote two passages from the volume before us.

"To the uninitiated in such matters it may be necessary to explain that when milk is boiled it is very apt to adhere to the bottom of the vessel and be scorched, thereby communicating a burnt taste to the whole; it is then said to be bishoped."

"The duties we perform at the distant settlements, tend rather, I fear, to increase dissent than to diminish it. These duties are so irregular and so often interrupted, that if they be productive of any serious and religious impressions, such impressions are immediately laid hold of, by the indefatigable zeal of dissenting preachers, who are to be found in every settlement, however small. And while they foster and cherish them, they naturally endeavour, and too often successfully, so to twist and distort them, as, in the end, to make them subserve their own purposes-the swelling of their own ranks."-p. 49.

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About this period, namely, the commencement of my sixth year in the country, I succeeded, after several abortive, attempts, in forming a Clerical Association.

"We Church Missionaries had to go to the metropolitan town every half-year, to draw our salaries, as well as to purchase such things as we required for our families, during the ensuing six months. On these occasions, instead of being dispersed among the hotels all over the town, as had previously been the custom, we all lodged together at one hotel during the two or three days we remained in the town. In the mornings we assembled in the House of God as friends' for prayers, and afterwards' held sweet counsel together' about our duties, and trials, and difficulties. Nor did we forget to tell each other of the many encouraging instances in which our labours and exertions had been blessed with signal and triumphant success. The rector of the parish in which our hotel was situated, always ready to patronize and encourage his brethren in the country, entered zealously into the scheme, and assisted materially in organizing the association.

"This institution, which, alas! has long since ceased to exist, was at first composed of but seven members, being at that time all the clergy in this part of the country;-plain, simple presbyters of a Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church: all of one heart and one mind, with the Scriptures for our rule of faith, and with the Canons and Rubrics of that Church, which we firmly believed to be in accordance with the Scriptures, as our rule of ministerial practice.

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Years passed on, and our numbers increased nearly ten-fold. Some of the new members brought 'strange things to our ears.' For instance, they not only endeavoured, by the most insidious arguments, to shake our faith in the blessed efficacy of the holy Sacraments, especially that of Baptism, which they asserted did not convey any inward and spiritual grace,' and absolutely ridiculed the idea of its being considered in any other light than as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, but which grace was not given at the time, nor indeed afterwards at any subsequent period in the lives of the recipients of this sign, unless they should happen to be converted and regenerated. They thus jumbled the two terms of Conversion and Regeneration together, or used them synonymously, thereby manifestly proving that they did not understand their meaning. These men did not even know, or at least did not understand their Catechism; and yet there is more genuine, good, and sound orthodox theology in that plain, simple, and concise epitome of our faith, than half the world is aware of.

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